


Crazy. In love.

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 17:32:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13506417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Prompt: Mulder and Scully, revival era, driving to a case when Beyoncé's Single Ladies comes over the radio and Scully starts to sing along; knowing all the words. Awkward conversation ensues.





	Crazy. In love.

The windscreen mists in the frigid air and he switches the heater on to full for her. She’s already shrugged down low in her seat, coat collar up, head inclined towards the window. She’s quiet, meditative. And that’s always a worry. He’s trying to think what he did or what he said. Or didn’t do or say. Did he stick his finger in evidence? Did he leave her to the mercies of some sexist or ageist law enforcement officer? Did he question her “theory”? Did he look at another woman? If he did he can’t remember, which tells him that there’s really nothing to worry about. But. She’s thrumming her fingers on the centre console. It takes him a moment to realise it’s not out of frustration or impatience, but that she’s doing it in time to the music.

He leans across to turn up the radio, brushing her arm. She turns to him and he’s already got ‘sorry’ on his tongue but she smiles. It throws him and he swerves into the other lane before correcting to the tune of a truck’s blasting horn, heart hammering.

This time he says it. “Sorry.”

Her laugh springs out of her and he chances a look. She’s almost lying down in the seat but she’s smiling up at him.

“I love this song. Up in the club, we just broke up…” Her feet are tapping and while her voice has deepened over the years, become thready with maturity and grief, no doubt, he can’t help but remember that night in the Florida forest when she sang to him to keep him awake. How comfortable they were back then, not lovers, but intimate beyond anyone’s measure.

“Cause I cried my tears, for three good years.”

He swallows and tries to concentrate on the tail lights ahead. Did she cry? Did she? He did. He cried every day and he picked up his phone every day to call her, to beg her to come home.

“I didn’t realise you liked Beyonce, Scully.”

She shrugs and launches into the chorus. “What’s not to like about Queen B? She’s the bomb.”

“The bomb, Scully?”

Her face freezes a beat before she sings again. “All right, she’s really good at singing. Is that better, Agent Mulder? I got gloss on my lips, a man on my hips…”

She’s dancing in the seat and he wants to pull over so he can watch. Is there such a thing as a car dance in the new world of the erotic? It’s been so long since he forayed that way, he’s not certain. But what he does know is that Scully jiggling around in a seat next to him, tucked inside a winter coat, with her hair bouncing on her shoulders, singing R&B is erotic beyond measure.

“Scully,” he says, flicking his gaze around and then back to the road more times than is necessarily safe. She doesn’t answer. She’s having a ball. And when she reaches the chorus she’s upright, arms in the air, head swinging side to side.

“Cause if you like it then you should have put a ring on it, If you like it then you should’ve put a ring on it, Don’t be mad once you see that he want it, If you like it then you should’ve put a ring on it.”

She twists her head towards him when she’s finished. Smiles. His knuckles turn white as he grips the steering wheel and tries to rid himself of the images careening across his mind’s eye. Willis, Waterston, Jerse, Padgett, O’Malley. 

“Do you have any Tylenol?” he asks, checking the clock on the dash. Twenty-five minutes if he puts his foot down. He can drop her off and shoot some hoops. Hit the living crap out of the punching bag. She fishes out a packet and pushes two caplets through the blister. Just the touch of her fingers against his hands has his balls fizzing again and he curses at the window, leaving a breath mark that might as well have said Fuck, I’m Hard in neon lettering.

“When I went clubbing with Liz and Mon I danced to that song, on a table top. I can’t believe I did that. What a night.”

He coughs and a tablet flies out. She’s resting her chin in her hand, elbow on the window. He’s suffering a cardiac arrest and she’s chuckling like some teenager on the way home from the school formal.

“Mon is so together these days. No more whale songs or New Age shit anymore. I guess living under the control of that cigarette smoking fuckhead for so long would do that to a woman. But now she’s free. And Liz. She’s all serious on the outside but when she’s got a couple of shots inside her she’s wild. I can’t even. They make a great couple. I felt like a third wheel tbh.”

Stinging bile is plugged in his throat. He hasn’t understood a single thing she’s just said. Has some kind of blockage in his brain. He opens his mouth but nothing but silence stretches out. The song is still playing out on the chorus. She’s singing under her breath. When her hand squeezes his knee, he realises he’s been holding his breath and he feels dizzy.

“How’s the head?”

“Did you just say you went clubbing?”

She laughs and the sound is crisp in the car, chinking around his ears. “A few times. And only when I’ve been really drunk. Hence the table-top dancing.”

He chances a glance at her and she’s waiting for his look, his reaction. He can’t hide it. He never has been able to.

“What? You never got drunk and did anything stupid, Mulder?”

“And that Monica Reyes is going out with Agent Einstein?” His fingers are stuck to the steering wheel.

She nods, serious now. “It’s wonderful really. Monica has had a hard time these past years and someone like Liz will be really good for her. God, I miss having girlfriends. What happened to our friends, Mulder? Did we spend so much time wrapped up in each other that we simply pushed everyone out?”

He looks at the passing line of traffic. Headlights just coming on in the dusk, leaving streaky trails behind his eyes. “Are you happy, Scully?”

She squeezes his knee again. “Happier than I’ve been for a long time, Mulder.”

The car in front is turning and he slows down. Everything slows down. He accelerates again and tries to remember if he has any food in the house, any drink.

“But it’s all relative,” she says now. “It’s not just girlfriends I miss, you know. I miss you.”

The spot on the window is still misted up and it expands with his new exhalation.

“You know, if I narrow my eyes, that shape looks like a love heart, Mulder.”

He turns to her and she’s looking right at him. The song on the radio is familiar. She’s tapping her fingers on the seat again and singing. “When I talk to my friends so quietly, Who he think he is? Must be a Beyonce special. How about that,” she says and lets her head fall back. “The way that you know what I thought I knew, It’s the beat my heart skips when I’m with you, But I still don’t understand, Just how your love can do what no one else can.”

He pulls up outside her apartment. The crescent moon is tilted, the first stars are stippling the skies. All around them, everywhere, is life.

“Come in for a drink, Mulder.” She covers his fist in her hand and pulls at it. “I promise not to dance on the table.”

He’s still smiling when he takes the first hot sip of Cognac. She’s sitting right next to him, thigh to thigh and he’s caught between the familiar and strange.

“I would have married you, Mulder. If you’d have asked me. As Queen B says, I was crazy in love. And maybe that was the problem.”

“We both were. Crazy. In love.”

She nods. “But we’re not anymore.”

She takes a long sip of her drink and he watches the movement of her throat. His eyebrow twitches. Does he go there? The liquor tracks down his throat.

“Crazy, I mean,” she says, leaning in for the first kiss.


End file.
